Taquisara

st time dreaded the power Matilde had over his thoughts as well as his actions. He felt that if he could avoid her, he could still cling to the remnant of honour, but that she would tear

he chill of his fear as a man hopes to rid himself of an ague by sitting in the sun. But the chill was in hi

d have had himself driven out along the public garden towards Posilippo, to see the faces of his friends go by. But it was morning. There was nothing but the club, and he cared little for the men he might meet there. There was nothing to do, and his e

et-book, and found in it a card, glanced at the address on it, and then once more at the name of the street. Then he went on till he came to the right number, entered a gloomy doorway, black with dampness and foul air, ascended four flig

not long been a professional clairvoyante, or else that she had recently changed her lodgings. Bosio knew nothing about her, except that she had suddenly acquired an extraordinary reputation as a seer, and that many people in society had lately visited her, and had come awa

of it as was upholstered was covered with a cheap cotton corded material of a spurious wine colour. There were small square antimacassars on the chairs, and two of them, side by side, on the back of the sofa. The single window had heavy curtains, now drawn aside, b

k wall, when he heard some one enter the room and softly clos

ore a long trailing garment of heavy black silk, not gathered to the figure at the waist, but loose from the shoulders down, and buttoned from throat to feet in front, with small buttons, like a cassock. From one of the upper buttonholes dangled a thin gold cha

d, in a professional tone, through the chronic

other into position for herself, opposite his, and at some distance fr

wn," she said, "I w

rd the rustle of the woman's silk dress as she sat down opposite to him in the dark. He felt unaccountably n

clear, bell-like voice, certainly not

ike most Neapolitans, he had vis

king?" he as

s his voice. Is there such a person as Veronica in your li

swer. "You are afraid that they will murder her, if

rm and astonishment, for this was altog

asked Giudit

in uncertain tones. "And I wi

me woman whose eyes are near together will

ng on his head. "Do you know

eak through me with another voice. I do not know what they are going to say. You need have no

n repeated, but the dramatic tone in which it was uttered produced

iuditta. "If you have any question to ask, you must put it quickly. I ca

her?" asked Bosio, suddenly springi

ose eyes are near toge

said the sp

hat I will not? What then? I

money. The handsome woman has her wil

insisted Bosio, half breathless i

ot answer. In the sile

reathing opp

lly kill her?"

d Bosio held his breath. Th

said. "He will not answer

xiously, and peering into the blackness bef

for the same person. He answered you many

t the few questions and answers he had heard in the clear voice which was so utterly unlike Giuditta's, though quite human and natural. He was certain that he had not heard the door open after she had d

ere," she said, answerin

spirit's voice

an tha

e trance state I remember nothing I have heard or seen while I have been in it. If you wish to ask more, you must have the ki

imits, and the china blue eyes stared col

osio, with a certain conside

ou," she added, as he laid the notes upon the polished walnut table. "Do you wish a

nd going towards the door. "I have one of

common china blue colour as Giuditta's own. The woman who did duty as a servant to admit visitors was undoubtedly Giuditta's mother or elder sister, or some very near relative. It would be natural enough, amongst such people

ng word from himself. Yet at the crucial test-the question of a certainty in the future, this one had stopped short as all stopped, or failed in their predictions of what was to come. He had been startled and almost frightened. Like many Southern Italians, he was at once credulous and sceptical-a superstitious unbeliever, if one may couple the two words into one expression. His intelligence bade him deny what his temperament inclined him to accept. Besides, on the present occasion, no theory which he could form could account

her? He passed his hand over his eyes as he walked. This was the end of the nineteenth century; he was in Naples, in the largest city of an enlightened country. And yet, the situation might have been taken from the times of the Medici, of Paolo Giordan

Veronica and attempted to get legal protection for her, the inevitable result would be the prosecution, conviction, and utter ruin of his brother and of the woman he loved. If he refused to marry Veronica and did nothing to protect her, Matilde's eyes had told him what Matilde would do to escape public shame and open infamy. If he

ere so placed, and the Sicilian's manly face and bold eyes rose up contemptuously before him. To such a

e knew, and he had never made one. Pleasant acquaintances he had, by the score and the hundred, in society, and amongst artists and men of letters. But the life he had l

e him to save Veronica at any cost, no matter what, or to whom. Then of course, a moment later, the thought seemed madness, and he only felt that he was losing hold more quickly upon his saner sense.

carefully kept,-a fact which might have argued that he was not an ordinary, hard-working parish priest of the people, even if his presence in a fashionable café had not of itself made that seem improbable. On the other hand, he wore heavy, coarse shoes; his clothes, though well brushed, were visibly threadbare, and his clean white stock was frayed at the edge and almost worn out. He had taken off his three-cornered hat, and his high peaked head was barely covered with scanty silver-grey hair. When he dropped his paper and looked about him for the waiter, evidently wishing to pay for his coffee, he showed a face sufficiently remarkable to deserve description. The prominent feature was the enormous, beak-like nose-the nose of the fanatic which is not to be mistaken amongst thousands, with its high, arching bridge, its wide, sensitive nostrils, and its preternaturally sharp, down-turning point. But the rest of the priest's face was not in keeping with what was most striking in it. The forehead was not powerful, narrow, prominent-but rather, broad and imaginative. The chin was round and not enough developed; the clean-shaven lips

began to edge his way out from behind the little marble table. But the long folds had fallen far on each side-so far that Bosio had unawares sat down upon the cloth, and as the priest tried to g

. "You were next to me,

help his imperfect sight, and he

recognized him. "I am almost blind,

not let me know it?" said Bosio,

and now I was going to you. Besides, it is the tenth of December. You know that I always come on the tenth every year, and stay until the twe

up of chocolate. Then we will do whatever you wish." He sat down again. "I am glad

ted himself, and proceeded to settle them very carefully on

d, after a careful scrutiny

adly; and I have been walking, and have not breakfasted. Oh! no-I am not ill. I am never ill. I

e must change in some way. It is better than growing young-better than growing young again," he repeated, shaking his

two would certainly have met later in the day, or on the morrow, and the accident of their meeting at the café had only brought them together a few hours earlier. For the hard-working country parish priest came yearly to

to him that the priest generally made a visit to the city about that time of the year, but he had never realized th

osio that Matilde Macomer had induced him at last to accept the parish in the mountains with the chaplaincy of the ancestral castle of the Serra,-an office which was a total sinecure, as the family had rarely gone thither to spend a few weeks, even in the days of the late prince. Matilde hated the place for its appalling gloominess and wild scenery, and Veronica, to whom it now belonged, had never seen it at all. It had the reputation of

re was he in both longings, that after he had disposed of the money in one way or the other, he almost invariably had an acute fit of self-reproach. His common sense alone told him that when he had given away nine-tenths of all he received, he had the right to spend the other tenth upon such food for his mind as was almost more indispensable to him than bread. But, besides this, he had been engaged for twenty years upon a history of the Church, in compiling which he believed he was doing a work of the highest importance to ma

had seen many things and known many men of many nations, before he had at last settled in Muro, in the little priest's house, under the shadow of the dismal castle, and close to the church. There he lived now, all the year round, excepting the ten days which he annually spent in Naples. The little house was full of books, and there was a big

common caution's sake, anything like intimacy with other men. But Bosio had not ceased to look upon the priest as the best man he had ever known, and in spite of his own errings, he was still quite able to appreciate goodness in others; and Don Teodoro had always remembered his pupil as one of the few men to whom he had been accustomed to speak freely of his hopes, and sympathies, and aspirations, feeling sure of appreciation from a nature at once refined and reticent, though itself hard to understand. For Don Teod

e there had been between them, the interest he had once felt in Bosio's fortune,-as an object once daily familiar, and fresh once and not without beauty, then long hidden for years

the marble table and peering through his silver-rimmed spe

s grew wonderfully gentle and kind. It was the transformation that came over them whenever any one was visibly poor

s heart, as though somewhere, at some immeasurable distance, there might

t is a great suffering. I do not t

thing?" aske

an smiles in torture when

I do. I have lived a bad life, and the time has come when I must pay the sco

d, and looked aw

r lives," he said gently. "The price may perhaps b